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Expanded store selling all things for Boy Scouts opens in Troy

By Terry Oparka

A new store selling all things Boy Scouts opened its doors in Troy Nov. 1.

The Boy Scouts Supply Group operates the 4,500-square-foot Troy Scout Shop, which was formerly located in Waterford. Another scout store, the Dick and Sandy Dauch Scout Center, operates in midtown Detroit.

Chuck Truza, vice president of marketing for the Great Lakes Field Service Council, which serves all scout organizations in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties, directed the opening ceremony at the store Nov. 1 with help from local scouts.

He explained that the Great Lakes Field Service Council is the result of a merger between the Clinton Valley and Detroit Area Councils and serves 25,000 youth with 10,000 volunteers and 24 staff.

Landrum Bagwell of the Boy Scouts National Supply Group, which operates the store, said the store followed a new concept and is only one of six stores in the country.

The location in Troy at Long Lake and Rochester was a good fit, Bagwell said.

“We mapped the membership and tried to get as close as we could to buyers,” he said.

“We were challenged at the Waterford office,” Jim Huttenlocker, vice president of the Great Lakes Field Service Council said, referring to the smaller space at that store.

He urged everyone to spread the word about what scouting has to offer, adding that the push is on to recruit more scouts.

“We’re competing against travel sports, even for first-graders,” he said. “Most kids want to be in the program, but they’ve never been asked.”

The Troy Scout Shop has space devoted to allow the paid council staff to do administrative work on site.

Cub Scout Shane Kenyon, 8, of Royal Oak, was among the scouts on hand at the grand opening. He officially cut the ribbon.

“It was a very big honor for him,” his mother Christa said.

Jamie Blumenthal, who owns the Long Lake Plaza on Long Lake and Rochester, where the Troy Scout Shop is located, said the space where the new store is located was occupied by a number of physicians but had been vacant for a few years.

“The Boy Scouts are a perfect match,” he said. “We completely gutted it,” he said of the renovation.

He said that a number of new businesses will or have come to the plaza — Sorrento’s Pizza, a new restaurant in the space formerly occupied by Wellington Pub that will have a new balcony and fire pit, a health and wellness spa and Ingram’s Candies, opening their first retail outlet. Prior to this, Ingram’s had been a wholesale business and supplied chocolate to Plum Market and Emagine Theatre in Royal Oak.

Blumenthal said the center was built in the ‘70s and underwent a $250,000 remodeling two years ago.

“We customized the space to what tenants wanted,” Blumenthal said.

The Troy Scout Shop is located at 1155 E. Long Lake. The store is open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Call (248) 253-9596 for information.